Contemporary Chinese Art- another kind of view
DSL Collection
RED
?Red? is about history, memories, about truth and lies, but also about language.
Red revolution is depicting communism society. It was once, without any doubt, the most magnificent verve through the mankind history and also the most beautiful ideal. But in reality this ideal was a constant tragedy for people. Today it seems like it completely failed. Still there is a thing that makes people sentimental about it. While history that followed was a judge to it, almost every human collectivity lost the sense of this ideal, they became very practical trying to gain benefit as much as possible. Can people that lost a sense of this ideal go toward a certain direction?
In the past this long red revolution had pictured the history we had strongly set up with two languages in a whirlpool: one language inside the walls is highly praising, while the other one outside the walls is discrediting to the utmost. From nowadays point of view, since the history changed in a trance, reality also changed into a joke. And we cannot just get rid of deep stigmas that history left on our bodies.
In this film I made up a story where an old man is a red guardsman. He?s much older than those red guardsmen in reality who have just stepped into their life as the old. This movie is actually showing the history paradox at the opening.
The audience almost doesn?t have to think about it, they only have to figure out that the red guardsman in this movie is a fraud. But how can we be sure that the impact that has deeply influenced our history is true or false? When it comes to this one hundred year-old revolution in China, we were informed from both sides at different perspectives?different information, also different history descriptions. But are those descriptions more true than my ?obviously fake? one? So I doubt the history, I doubt all different descriptions of it, then slightly with a mean intention I also made a ?fake? history depiction.
In my descripition I reconstructed or ?reproduced? course of modern Chinese history. Still, all of these are sources and materials, they are open testimony claimed for the fakeness of history. To use historic affairs as sources and materials, decorated into testimony in order to form the self-beneficial face of history ? isn?t this the core of all historial descriptions? From this point of view, all the historic descriptions in my work are indeed true because of their fake context.
There is another level of truth that history and time are being wrapped in a dense fog, that?s a true experience. At present life, our encircled past, present and future are not eternaly transparent. Future and past pointer has the ambiguous meaning, as if being disturbed by a magnetic field, continuously shaking ? especially for our generation.
I have always hold this point that language is the path. In this film, I try to follow the lead of the cinema language without pursuing the so-called truth of history and reality. On the other hand, I look for a poetic reality about existence ? I believe that this truth is more essential.
Red revolution is depicting communism society. It was once, without any doubt, the most magnificent verve through the mankind history and also the most beautiful ideal. But in reality this ideal was a constant tragedy for people. Today it seems like it completely failed. Still there is a thing that makes people sentimental about it. While history that followed was a judge to it, almost every human collectivity lost the sense of this ideal, they became very practical trying to gain benefit as much as possible. Can people that lost a sense of this ideal go toward a certain direction?
In the past this long red revolution had pictured the history we had strongly set up with two languages in a whirlpool: one language inside the walls is highly praising, while the other one outside the walls is discrediting to the utmost. From nowadays point of view, since the history changed in a trance, reality also changed into a joke. And we cannot just get rid of deep stigmas that history left on our bodies.
In this film I made up a story where an old man is a red guardsman. He?s much older than those red guardsmen in reality who have just stepped into their life as the old. This movie is actually showing the history paradox at the opening.
The audience almost doesn?t have to think about it, they only have to figure out that the red guardsman in this movie is a fraud. But how can we be sure that the impact that has deeply influenced our history is true or false? When it comes to this one hundred year-old revolution in China, we were informed from both sides at different perspectives?different information, also different history descriptions. But are those descriptions more true than my ?obviously fake? one? So I doubt the history, I doubt all different descriptions of it, then slightly with a mean intention I also made a ?fake? history depiction.
In my descripition I reconstructed or ?reproduced? course of modern Chinese history. Still, all of these are sources and materials, they are open testimony claimed for the fakeness of history. To use historic affairs as sources and materials, decorated into testimony in order to form the self-beneficial face of history ? isn?t this the core of all historial descriptions? From this point of view, all the historic descriptions in my work are indeed true because of their fake context.
There is another level of truth that history and time are being wrapped in a dense fog, that?s a true experience. At present life, our encircled past, present and future are not eternaly transparent. Future and past pointer has the ambiguous meaning, as if being disturbed by a magnetic field, continuously shaking ? especially for our generation.
I have always hold this point that language is the path. In this film, I try to follow the lead of the cinema language without pursuing the so-called truth of history and reality. On the other hand, I look for a poetic reality about existence ? I believe that this truth is more essential.
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Gao Shiqiang
Video, 50'6"
Video, 50'6"